Onshore/Offshore dichotomy: Northern elders slam Adoke

Northern elders are angry with the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Mohammed Adoke, for declaring the debate on the onshore/offshore oil dichotomy as closed.

The Northern Elders Forum (NEF) yesterday said the Attorney General has no right whatsoever to say Nigerians cannot debate any issue of interest to them.

“Who is he to say that the debate on onshore/offshore dichotomy is closed? Who is he to say that the debate on onshore/offshore dichotomy is closed? By who?” spokesman for the NEF, Prof. Ango Abdullahi fumed yesterday in Abuja in a reaction to the minister’s statement.

Speaking at the valedictory session in honour of retiring Justice Francis Tabai of the Supreme Court on Thursday, Adoke had warned the public to avoid overheating the polity through re-opening the debate on the onshore/offshore oil dichotomy in the allocation of revenue.

But speaking to reporters on the sideline of the inaugural session of the Constitution Review Committee set up by the NEF in Abuja, Prof. Abdullahi lashed out at the minister: “Is he saying that Nigerians have no right to speak on issues which onshore/offshore dichotomy is, for him to say that the debate is closed? On what grounds?

“It sounds stupid to me. It is a matter of continuous discussion and debate. He has no right to say that the matter is closed.”

On the forum’s Constitution Review and Political Committees, the former Presidential Adviser on Agriculture said the North is looking primarily at resource control, sovereign national conference and onshore/offshore dichotomy.

He said: “Primarily, the issues the North is looking at are resource control, sovereign national conference as advocated and then onshore/offshore dichotomy. These are on the front burner of the constitution review. And the legal think tank here would review those positions and know how the North would approach it.”

On the 2015 presidential election, he said: “For us here, primarily we are involved first in securing the unity of our people. If our people are not safe and are not secured, 2015 will not make any meaning to us in this group because we believe that a united North will now be able to talk politics with sense.

“We are already bedevilled by a lot of crises, security challenges, unemployment and poverty. So with all these ones, I don’t think we have the luxury to be discussing 2015 for now at this level. We believe that if we are organised and united, we may be able to know where the balance stands in 2015.

“The question is that the issue of politics as we understand it, particularly when it comes to elections, there are rules for elections and the elections will be contested on the basis of rules. So, let it be. And that is what it will be in 2015.

He noted that the political committee set up by the NEF “is supposed to look at the politics of Nigeria and see how the North will fit into it or how Nigeria will fit into it in 2015.”

On agitation for state police, he said: “The agitation for state police already has gathered momentum and it is clear that there are certain past leaders of this country that already are championing it. Most of the southern governors are pro-state police and majority of our governors here are not disposed to state police.

“For us in the committee here, we are going to weigh the propriety of that vis-a-vis national interest. In fact, at the inaugural speech here, the chairman insisted that the North must not do anything that will be unjust to anybody living in Nigeria. We believe in the unity of this country.”

He added: “To me personally again, the issue of zoning should be thrown away. Contest should be open, and so be it. The question of allocation of positions based on certain region should be thrown away and let people be free to contest.”

He described the practice of the presidential system in Nigeria as expensive, but he did not say whether the NEF would be calling for a change of the system during the on-going constitution review process.

“As a group, we feel that we have embarked on a change that has brought disaster to Nigeria. The presidential system of government is a major disaster to Nigerians,” he said, adding: ”I have never seen governance as expensive as what we have on ground today, and even if we are copying the presidential system from the United States, we are bad copiers of the system that operates in the United States today.

“For example, a senator in Nigeria earns $1.5 million while the President of the United States earns $400,000 a year. So, something must be wrong in the manner in which we understand the presidential system of government, especially if we are copying from the United States.

“But talking about cost of governance from the little project I am trying to undertake now, I have reached a stage where I can pronounce that the cost of governance under the presidential system that we have is three to four times more than the parliamentary system which we threw away in 1979.”